My Tea Time is Book Time: Review: Looking for Alaska

Title: Looking for Alaska
Author: John Green
ISBN/Publisher: 978-0-14-240251-1/Speak (part of Penguin)
Age Group/Genre: Young Adult
Awards/Honors: 2006 winner of the Michael L. Printz Award

Miles Halter is a Florida teenager and basically doesn't fit in around his community. So he leaves his home and parents for a boarding school in Alabama to explore and maybe find the "Great Perhaps."

An interesting thing about Miles is his interest in famous people's last words, especially François Rabelais's, "I go to seek a Great Perhaps." At Culver Creek Preparatory School, he becomes friends with his roommate Chip, aka the Colonel and the beautiful and unpredictable book loving Alaska.

They become close throughout the school year with their schooling, a few pranks, breakups, and stuff about their personal lives. But then the story comes to the life altering part of the book, one that will change Miles forever and leads him to new conclusions about the value of his cherished "Great Perhaps."

"Pudge" aka Miles adds in a lot of interesting information to the book about famous people and their last words. It kind of made me interested in this topic since I love quotations. And John Green is an amazing, witty writer. This was my first book written by him and it definitely would not be my last.

The story was written in sections title "X amount of days before" and "X amount of day after." And I had no idea what the middle part was going to be about and I was kind of surprised when it did happen. However, I wasn't angry with what happened. The characters were people that I would have loved to be friends with in high school (even though I probably wouldn't have done certain things with them because I was a scaredy cat). Looking for Alaska is a story that I will love to read again and recommend to others. The perspective from a boy is something that I don't usually read, but I have loved (especially when it is written by John Green).

This is actually a really good coming of age story that I have recently read. I remember that my sophomore year in high school this was the theme and I kind of hope that teachers will start to put this book on their list for their students to read (even if there is some controversy, but hey it's still a great book for high school teens to read!!!)

Favorite parts of the book...
There were way too many & the lines would be way to long here...so I guess that means you need to out and read it!!!

My Rating